Bad Beer?

[qwaven]

Hey all,

So I've brewed a fair amount of beer without any issues in terms of beer not turning out as beer... until now?

I've so far just used kits of varying skills.

This kit was one of the pretty basic ones. Just add water and maybe some sugar...etc and your done. Not at all complicated.

In any case my process was something like this:

1. follow instructions and prepare the wort in the fermenter.
2. Let it ferment for about 7 days until fermentation slowed but not completely stopped.
3. Switch into secondary (I have a fast ferment)
4. Let it ferment some more, and actually with the holidays I let it sit probably 2.5 weeks after the initial 7 days before kegging it.
5. Let it sit in the keg in the fridge for roughly 3-4 weeks.

Now I tried it the other day and it doesn't look right to me. Poured at least 3-4 pints maybe more and its still quite cloudy to the point that I can't see through the class at all.

Let one of the glasses sit 5-6 days outside and it looks pretty bad. It developed this white film on the glass and the liquid looks like it almost has some oil in it?

Given that this kit didn't even require a whole lot of work I'm a bit puzzled as to why this may have happened. The only thing I can think of is that I possibly used the PBW instead of the sanitizer to sanitize things as I already had then mixed in buckets from a previous brew. However I can't be sure. Wondering if anyone had any thoughts?

I've attached a pic of the glass I let sit as well as (2) of the freshly poured one.


Cheers!

 

[JonM]

What was the recipe? Was it wheat extract? Sometimes that can make a cloudy beer and odd looking head.

If you used the PBW instead of sanitizer, you could have an infection. Is it sour or odd tasting?

Oh, and throw out the kit instructions. They are always ye olde tyme directions. Just leave the beer in the primary fermenter for three weeks and then keg (as long as Gravity is stable.)

ETA: The one that sat outside for a week definitely got infected just from sitting out. Might not have been anything in the keg.

 

[qwaven]

Hey JonM,

Thanks for the response.

The beer is a Coopers European Lager (green tin)

Tasting the beer I would say its sour no. Its not bitter either though.

I don't find the taste particularly inspiring. Doesn't really make me want to consume it which is part of my basis of thinking something is off. I'm pretty sure when I did my second SG reading the beer was much clearer. I had even put a clarifier in this probably around the same time as the SG reading so it shouldn't be cloudy.

Cheers!

 

[JonM]

You would probably get much better results from an extract kit (one that gets boiled) from Northern Brewer or Austin Homebrew or Williams or something.

 

[IslandLizard]

You would probably get much better results from an extract kit (one that gets boiled) from Northern Brewer or Austin Homebrew or Williams or something.

+100^

Pre-hopped kit-and-kilo recipes are very disappointing. Think of Mr. Beer kits. The promise is there, the delivery, the end product, is far from that.

Plenty of extract recipes on this forum (and elsewhere). Buy the loose ingredients and brew better beer.

Make sure to read this: How to Brew